figure of speech


noun, plural figures of speech. Rhetoric.

any expressive use of language, as a metaphor, simile, personification, or antithesis, in which words are used in other than their literal sense, or in other than their ordinary locutions, in order to suggest a picture or image or for other special effect. Compare trope(def 1).

Origin of figure of speech

First recorded in 1815–25

British Dictionary definitions for figure of speech

figure of speech

noun

an expression of language, such as simile, metaphor, or personification, by which the usual or literal meaning of a word is not employed